User Reviews

The review that says "the European guy was bad news" and the one stating that "he murdered his boyfriend" appear to have missed two important details:

(1) It was the ex girlfriend who set up the video camera when she smuggled the book into the bedroom

(2) the final scenes are in the present time - you can tell this because Luc is wearing the Nike shirt - it's not a flashback.

I'm surprised that so few people appear to be able to follow a fairly straightforward plot.

The aesthetic of this film is quite lovely, in the Chinese rural areas, such as the Doctor's wooden and white room, and the nature.

However, from the beginning, the storyline is strange and difficult to follow. He appears seemingly from out of nowhere, and after watching the film I still do not know why. The ending is equally miserable, just miserable. A guy leaves his girlfriend for the main character - Luke - and she is very bitter about this, despite her being a relatively devout Christian on the surface. She massively overreacts, and as does he as a result. Then the main character essentially murders his boyfriend, and ends up in a psychiatric institution - maybe as a result of this? It really couldn't be more screwed up - everything goes wrong and it was just disappointing to see.

I propose that the storyline could have headed to Paris, maybe Luke having to escape the psychiatric ward. Maybe the bitter ex girlfriend could be hit by a bus after releasing the sex tape, whilst running after her ex boyfriend crying at the same time as him. Or perhaps she could attempt to take her own life after running away from him in tears after catching them together, but then she could survive, and her ex boyfriend could be there to support her and feeling terrible for what's happened until she wakes up. Or something like that. I don't mind bad issues happening, but I would have appreciated a more optimistic ending.

"Speechless" tries very hard to bring together the lives of a French exchange student in China and four other Chinese people. It does not strike me that any of the actors in this film are professional. It looks like they were told to react, respond and move very slowly, in hopes that their actions would be interpreted as "natural." As a result, the pacing of the film is extremely slow.

The story, such as it is, is described in the summary on the IMDB page, and it is accurate. The director has some ability and tries his best to give interesting camera angles and tries to make sure to get enough coverage so things can be viewed from different perspectives. That however, does not make a compelling story.

As with many gay films that come from Asia, there is often the element that one of the Asian men is involved with a woman, but then he meets another man and all bets are off. In this film, the French exchange student meets two men: the first is already involved with a woman, but after French kisses him, he's gay. The second one, a nurse's aide is closeted but is obviously interested in the French man. The nurse's aide has a policewoman who likes him, but instead of just telling her the truth, he evades her questions, as did the first man with his girlfriend. A lot of pain, anger, and arguing go on, all of which could be avoided if people were honest. But we still live in a world that has an issue with LGBTQ people.

The best part of this film is that it takes us into the heart of rural China. It is not pretty. It was made in 2012. Are things any different? I don't know. Everything looks grim, dark, broken, subpar, and poor quality. This gave the whole film a gritty, sad feeling.

The young leads were all attractive, male and female, and they all did their best. The director/writer did have some strong ideas going into the story, but I don't think they all worked.

I see that there are some cruel reviews about this film, and yes, it was extremely slow and no one seemed particularly bright. But still, I applaud the filmmaker for making a somewhat unusual film in the heart of China and trying to portray a unique but doomed gay relationship.

Really, this movie is just dumb! Here's what happens - this European dude goes to China to further his Mandrin language studies. A native male Chinese student becomes emotionally involved with the European dude. The Chinese guy comes to an unfortunate end because it's discovered he's having an affair with the European guy. European guy goes bonkers and won't talk to anyone and is found 'nekkid' passed out on some river bank. He's taken to a mental hospital where yet another Chinese guy becomes attracted to him and puts his job on the line because he's so taken with European guy.

We eventually find out why European guy goes bonkers, and the ending of the story is just stupid. The whole movie is stupid and not one character comes across as believable. And the only thought I had is why these guys thought the European guy was a catch - he was just bad news!

I saw this movie some 2 years ago and forgot to rate it. By pure chance I tumbled upon this page again and read the 2 comments.

While I can understand one of them, I couldn't disagree more with the other. And I just can't understand this cold & heartless comment. You could tell that about any & every movie, that it's dumb. Madame Bovary, Star Wars, are just dumb. That is, if you are not open to discovering something, when you really are not ready to try to understand a story and how it is brought on film.

There are, in this movie, so many tender and, for Hong Kong and China movies, new approaches. That is, if you want to see them.

Loss of memory, of speech, can happen after a traumatizing event. That is, if you want to try to understand, and are prepared to do some research before commenting.

The last scene of this touching movie is impressive. See it for yourself, or have another look.

None of the principal actors is known (until today) to have participated in another move. Is it because they were bad actors? I don't think so. They made a statement with this beautiful movie. They needn't do more.

Open you mind and enjoy!